All The Tropes:Tropers for Creation
This is Tropers for Creation, a quick introduction to this wiki for Wikipedians. If that's not you, please select a different introduction below:
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Hi there, Wikipedian. So you might have clicked a link to this website and saw a lot of cool information. Or maybe a friend recommended you visit. The site looks pretty similar to Wikipedia, but where are all the citations?
I'm sure you already noticed by the tone of this article that we're definitely a different kind of site. While Wikipedia is a Content Classification Wiki, we at All The Tropes are a Content Creation Wiki. Original research is valued here, because we want to go beyond description. We want to understand the components of creative fiction, and how it all fits together.
The components of fiction we call tropes, little patterns in storytelling that recur across many forms of media. Some of these have commonly used names, like subtext or MacGuffin, and some of them we just make up like Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot. While they don't all have academic-sounding names yet, these are real patterns detected in media. We do our best to come up with names for tropes, as contentious as that can be.
In addition to tropes, we also cover creators and their works. Works are any form of entertainment, be it a comic book, television show, or ancient epic poem.
All works are considered notable here. If a page is on the topic or entertainment and is publicly available, it is within the scope of this project. We used to have a page called We Are Not Wikipedia. I think it got moved to There Is No Such Thing as Notability. Honestly, we should move it again, because there are such things as notability and free lunch -- they're just not relevant here. Beowulf and My Immortal get equal coverage here, sadly.
Oddly enough, some tropes are not considered notable, such as People Sitting On Chairs. Yeah, that's Exactly What It Says on the Tin. But if it's more than just some basic fact of human life being portrayed in the media, we want to trope it!
Our Relationship to Wikipedia
All The Tropes is, ultimately, a place for fans to geek out over works and analyze them deeply. We are also a writer's resource, as we tell about the recurring patterns, plots, and mistakes of thousands of creative works.
That's why Wikipedia is an invaluable tool for all of us here. That's why we link to it at the top of every work page. Wikipedia gives users a chance to dig up even more information on their favorite media.
It's also useful to use Wikipedia to get started on new pages (with proper attribution in the edit comment, natch). But the pages shouldn't stay looking like Wikipedia. We're here not to document a story, but to analyze its contents. This is a function of literary criticism.
And like all literary criticism, opinions are definitely tolerated. We do not enforce Neutral Point of View here, but instead support Multiple Points of View (MPOV). Keep in mind Values Dissonance -- the idea that others social norms may lead to different opinions than your own. While MPOV makes it a little more difficult to maintain order, we're a creative bunch and need space to discuss ideas and opinions. That doesn't mean blatantly false things get to stay, because we're not Conservapedia; if it's provably false, Kill It with Fire.
Procedural Differences
As we don't have so many members yet, there is not the same level of bureaucracy here. We currently have three bureaucrats - User:Labster, User:Looney Toons and User:Robkelk rule more or less as a triumvirate, and the rest of the admins help out. The Miraheze wiki farm guys retain all of the sysop powers.
In general though, we try to stick to the Policy for Wiki Staff as much as possible. And if we don't, call us out on it! (We specifically say that simply disagreeing with a mod will not get you banned here.) Your opinions are always valuable, as this is a community-led wiki.
And instead of Articles for Creation, new tropes are brewed in the Trope Workshop. Pages on creators or works can skip this step, because Works Pages Are a Free Launch.
We don't have a Village Pump or a Departure Lounge or any of those other pages that the various Wikimedia wikis set aside for questions. Instead, we encourage people to ask questions on our Forums - if you have an account here, you have the same account there.
Important Note
As a result of the Great Miraheze Spam Flood that affected multiple wikis in December 2020, we have instituted moderation of posts. Your edits and image uploads will not appear immediately, the way that they would on Wikipedia.
A small number of people are exempt from this anti-spam measure. This is a privilege given to them for consistently good edits and being a Troper in good standing, not a right - it has to be earned, and it can be removed if the Troper decides to go rogue or starts ignoring the Style Guide or other wiki policies and guidelines.
Technical Differences
While we do try to keep our naming system similar to Wikipedia, there are a few differences. If a trope is named the same as a work, the trope always wins. The work is relegated to the relative obscurity of having parentheses after its name. Also, we're much more likely to use stylized titles for works as the main entry. There are redirects and disambiguation pages, so you'll probably be okay.
We do use a lot of subpages, though. And subpages of subpages. No "List of *" to be found here (except for lists of pages people want created and pages that need some work); you'll find most details in places like the "Characters" or "Recap".
The namespace shortcut for All The Tropes: is ATT:.
Summary
Pretty much, just follow The Troper's Code: Educate, entertain, have fun, and play nice.
Okay, that's about it for now. Welcome to the Wiki, and happy editing!
If you don't have a page in mind you're eager to edit, check out our Starting Points.